#127: Scaling SaaS with Efficient Growth and Practical Funding - Bryan Forrester

Practical Founders Podcast

Bryan Forrester is CEO of Boostlingo, a leading on-demand platform for language live interpretation services that is growing quickly and can become a very large company.

Boostlingo now has 160 employees and over 17,000 language interpreters who use their software to manage jobs, coordinate schedules, deliver interpreting services, and get paid.

Bryan raised some practical funds from angels to start the company in 2016. The company grew 50% or more every year since then. In 2021, Boostlingo raised a growth equity round of funding from Mainsail Partners to provide capital for efficient growth and buy out some early investors. Boostlingo has since made several small acquisitions.

Quote from Bryan Forrester, CEO and co-founder of Boostlingo

"Our customers love our software, and our NPS is very high. So when we have customers who love our software, we have high retention and low churn, and our customer costs are really good. When all of that is combined, why would you slow down the growth?

"Why would you take your foot off the gas pedal and be very profitable? And we raised a growth equity investment from Mainsail and started spending more on efficient marketing. And it worked. It worked.

"What would have happened if we didn't take that small investment with our growth equity partner? We could still have had a positive outcome. We may have already sold the business. But we wouldn't have grown as big as we have become in this very big market."

Links

• Bryan Forrester on LinkedIn
• Boostlingo on LinkedIn
• Boostlingo website
• Mainsail Partners website

Podcast Sponsor - Cypress Growth Capital

This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital. For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast.

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